375980-042 - Tweco .045 Flux-Cored Drive Roll Kit for 4-Roll Feeders

Stop Slipping and Crushing Your Flux-Core Wire

If you are running .045" flux-cored or dual shield wire and fighting with your wire feeder, the problem might be your drive rolls. Using the wrong rolls—like smooth V-grooves meant for solid wire—forces you to crank down the tension to get the wire to move. This crushes the hollow wire, making it oval-shaped. Oval wire drags in the liner and jams in the contact tip, causing burn-backs and birdnesting. The Tweco 375980-042 Drive Roll Kit is the fix you need for smooth, headache-free welding on 4-roll feeder systems.

These rolls are "knurled," meaning they have small teeth or ridges on the groove surface. These teeth act like tire treads, gripping the softer flux-cored wire without needing excessive tension. Because the rolls bite into the wire, you can back off the tensioner, preserving the round shape of the wire. This allows it to slide effortlessly through the gun liner and make perfect electrical contact at the tip. The result? A stable, consistent arc that sounds like bacon frying, rather than the sputtering and popping caused by erratic feeding.

This kit is designed for 4-roll feeders, which are the workhorses of the industry. In a 4-roll system, you have two sets of rolls pushing the wire. This kit outfits your machine completely for .045" wire. Installing them is straightforward: simply remove the retention caps or screws on your feeder, slide off the old rolls, and slide these on. Make sure to align them correctly with the wire guide tubes. Once installed, set your tension just tight enough so the rolls don't slip when you pinch the wire at the gun tip (with gloves on, of course).

Don't let cheap or worn-out drive rolls ruin your welds. Worn knurls lose their grip, leading to the same slippage issues as smooth rolls. If your current rolls look flat or clogged with debris, it's time to swap them out. The Tweco 375980-042 kit is built tough to handle the grit and grind of the shop environment, ensuring your machine feeds wire reliably spool after spool. Whether you are welding structural steel or heavy equipment, these rolls are the foundation of a good feed system.